Dr. Vanderspek is a Board certified Anesthesiologist with more than 25 years experience in clinical anesthesia, analgesia and pain management. He has a broad background in narcotics, agonists / antagonists, sedatives, muscle relaxants, and cholinesterase functions.

Clinical Interests: Pediatric and neurological anesthesia, pain management, anesthesia for laser surgery, malignant hyperthermia and neuromuscular diseases.

Research Interests: Neuromuscular junction, positron emission tomography scanning and masticatory neuromuscular system.

Dr. Vanderspek’s expertise in clinical anesthesia, analgesia and pain management brought him to MNIMBS.  He has a direct interest to help develop novel nanotechnology applications for controlled release analgesic therapeutics.  In addition, he sees opportunities to apply (dendrimer-based) nanotechnology to clinical care practices to improve outcomes and reduce the morbidity associated with the present standard of care.

He participates in an M-NIMBS DARPA funded proposal to develop Battlefield Analgesics with Physiological Feedback Control.  The goal is to develop analgesics that can be self-administered on the battlefield and that do not require monitoring of the injured, but have a built in feedback/corrective system. Dr. Vanderspek serves as a Co-Investigator

He serves as Co-Investigator on a University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer funded project with Dr. Steven Archer and Dr. Xiangyang Shi, entitled Gold Nanoparticles for Focused Retinoblastoma Laser Treatment. The aim of this pilot study is to determine whether nanomolecular gold particles, embedded in a dendrimer-based structure in conjunction with focal laser treatment can result in RB tumor ablation without the need for systemic chemotherapy.

Email: abraham@umich.edu